Blogs of the Week

A recent article in Inside Higher Education documents a surge in male enrollment in community colleges.

Women still make up 62 percent of those earning associate degrees. If this gender imbalance ever gets straightened out, it will happen because males looked around their economic world—with nearly 80 percent of layoffs happening to men—and realized it’s changed.

The trick, of course, is getting them to realize this in 8th grade so they can do better surviving the college-readiness curriculum about to smack them in 9th grade. Tough job. But the simple reality is that if you want to be a police officer or work in a machine shop, you need post-high-school academic credentials. College truly is the new high school. —Richard Whitmire

Sue Sylvester, the sadistic high school gym teacher in the “Glee” television series, makes us laugh with her biting put-downs of students and teachers. However, when physical education teachers humiliate students in real life, they can turn them off physical fitness for good.

That’s according to a new study described in Science Daily. Written by University of Alberta researcher William Strean, the study is based on 24 qualitative accounts from adults looking back on their childhood gym experiences.

Should this article be required reading for wannabe gym teachers? I think so. —Debra Viadero

I am a fly on the wall at a committee discussing the future of teaching. Asked what do I think, I answer: “I’m thinking about the health-care debate. I am wondering if I will be asked to sit on a national committee charged with the task of creating a core curriculum of medical procedures to be used in emergency rooms.” I realize that most people would think I am unqualified to sit on such a committee because I am not a doctor. So what? Today, I have listened to people who are not teachers, have never worked in a classroom, and have never taught a single student tell me how to teach. I return to being a fly on the wall. —Anthony Mullen

Vol. 29, Issue 18, Page 8

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